Carol’s Column

Who is this amazing cook and whiz with the vacuum?

This has been a week to remember for my youngest unmarried son Jamie who arrived for a visit from the UK where he has been living for two years.

What is more, he was accompanied by his new fiancée, English Amanda, a diminutive slip of a girl who wears a size 3 shoe and studied theology at university.

We met Amanda briefly at our oldest son's wedding in the Caribbean and we encountered her father Mike when he visited SA to swim in the recent veteran Olympics in East London.

He was only in Cape Town for an evening and naturally we invited him for dinner not knowing as an ex army major he'd arrive on time. When he appeared at the back door because we didn't hear the front door bell ring due to the fact that I was frying indigenous kingklip in a special Cape Malay spiced batter to impress him, I sent him to the bottom of the garden. I thought he was the pool technician to fix our faulty filter.

It transpired he thought our son wonderful which instantly endeared him to us.

In fact, when he spoke of Jamie's engineering skills and his ability to fix everything from a watch to an intricate plumbing system, I had to kick my spouse under the table to stop him recounting Jamie's sole previous encounter with plumbing.

Which occurred when he got his arm stuck in the S-bend of the toilet while trying to rescue his goldfish Clinton Friedman who we'd flushed away because he'd expired.

"It’s not necessary to give me a pep talk," snapped my husband before Amanda's visit. "Of course I won't tell Amanda how Jamie almost burnt the house down braaing wors. Of course I won't tell her how he dismantled the lawnmower to use the engine for the gocart he built and how he got ticketed by a traffic cop for driving it around Zoo Lake without a licence aged 12."

The kids arrived and we smiled our way home where we plied them with biltong, dried mango and buttermilk rusks. Naturally, we had to introduce Amanda to our various traditional customs such as the braaivleis.

"The wors must always be cooked whole," I heard my husband lecture, "otherwise it will be dry and inedible as all the juices will escape."

That was the same conversation where I heard Amanda discuss the merits of biltong. "I think it's a cultural difference," she shuddered. "I can't imagine why anyone would want to eat rock-hard dried meat."

One evening I heard them discussing children, how they'd like a large family (six or even seven) and how Jamie was determined to name their first son Loda after Loda Mphela our personal Minister of Agriculture for 30 years.

"Six or seven!" gasped my husband and the last 27 hairs on his head turned snow white. We learnt that on arrival in London, Jamie had worked as a chamber person at a small hotel.

"He's terrific at home," Amanda confided. "He's a whiz with the vacuum cleaner and is an amazing cook."

Could this be the same son who refused to make his bed for seven years because it was unnecessary effort, whose washing walked itself to the washing machine and whose idea of haute cuisine was strawberry pops?

I had a small engagement lunch to introduce Amanda to the family and all went well until a friend, upon learning Amanda's degree was in theology, jokingly suggested she might become an Anglican minister upon which my orthodox Aunty Leah fainted into the pickled herring.

And then it was time for them to leave for the Kruger Park and I heard my son say to his Amanda in true African macho mode: "Don't worry about lions and elephants, I'm here to protect you."

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